Save for your retirement with an online purchase or at a local establishment with a credit card? Ibercaja has just launched Pensumo, a digital platform with which it aims to promote complementary savings for retirement through consumption in any of the 100 establishments that are part of the initiative. The formula is simple: The consumer will receive contributions to a retirement plan managed by Ibercaja for each purchase at an affiliated establishment.. The consumer does not necessarily have to be an Ibercaja customer, any adult who links their credit card and accepts the corresponding authorizations will be able to start saving.
The entity’s leaders boast of “the most innovative project since Bizum” and they talk about the fourth pillar of pensions, as stated by José Carlos Vizárraga, general director of Ibercaja Pensión; Víctor Royo, director of payments and consumer activities at Ibercaja; and David Herrando, general manager of Pensumo, a subsidiary of Ibercaja 100% owned by the Aragonese entity.
The biggest challenge was to adapt the pension law to its product with the support of the Ministry of Economy through a proposal in the sandbox financial, which they carried out in the summer of 2023, after a decade of managing the project imagined by José Luis Orós when he was an employee of El Corte Inglés.
Ibercaja managed to ally himself with Amazon, Hospitality of Spain, Bershka, Decathlon, Lidl, Ikea, Telepizza or Zaragoza City Hall and its “We will return” initiative to support local commerceamong other companies. Each will offer a reward for the consumer’s individual savings account under the conditions it considers: for example, Amazon will reimburse the pension fund 8% of the ticket associated with the user’s credit card in certain sections.
The average, according to Ibercaja management, This will be between 3% and 5% of the purchase. In any case, they emphasize that each company can condition the reward on compliance with a minimum ticket or a maximum amount. There are companies like Freshly Cosmetics that will offer 20%, up to a maximum of six euros cashback for the retirement plan with a minimum disbursement of 30 euros.
What will the piggy bank look like? The consumer retirement model is a pioneer in Europe and practically throughout the world, after a few attempts in China or Chile. Ibercaja has 35 years of experience in pension fund management, has almost 8 billion in assets under management and a good market share in this sector (6%, fourth nationally).
It is for this reason that Ibercaja resorts to what it already knows and knows how to manage. The money will be invested in a mixed fixed income fundwith 70% of the investment in fixed income and 30% in variable income, certainly conservative, and ESG criteria. For reasons of economy of scale, they will not currently allow the customer to choose another individual pension plan.
As part of this attraction, they intend to form and enter into agreements with a total of 1,000 companies and add between 350,000 and 400,000 new users within a year, they highlighted.
The application is available today for Ibercaja customers and Pensumo will be available for any individual residing in Spain in mid-October. The subscription is 100% digital, without paperwork or the need to go to an office, seeking maximum agility and ease for its users, they explain.
In addition, it will not be necessary to have an Ibercaja account, to be a client of the Entity or to have a retirement plan; it will be in the registration process where all these requirements will be handled with utmost ease. For non-customers, the app will be available on October 16.
